


...And they lived happily ever after?

by 1000lux



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ringer (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Post Season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000lux/pseuds/1000lux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Ringer, if it had been Buffy instead of Bridget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...And they lived happily ever after?

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction, I own neither rights to the characters nor to the series.

After Spike's death things had gotten only downwards for Buffy. Yeah, she had saved the world,  
again. But what had it gotten her?  
She was alone. She hadn't been able to go to college. And she was selling fries and burgers  
for a living.  
She wasn't needed any longer. Since all the other girls had been awakened, she had her life back  
to herself. She thought she had always wanted this. But it turned out normal life hadn't much   
to offer to her.  
All her friends got on with their lives. Dawn went to college (For her it wasn't an possibility,  
paying for Dawn, had already eaten up all her savings).

And then time went on.   
Xander married and got children.  
Willow moved to another city with her girlfriend.  
Giles went back to England.  
Faith had left town, god knows where to. Angel had mentioned that she was in jail again, once  
on the phone. Nowadays they only talked on the phone, if at all. He was now in love with, who   
would have guessed, Cordelia. (She had thought about moving to L.A., but now that was out of   
the question).  
She missed Spike. She hadn't imagined how much. But he was gone.

At first her friends tried to cheer her up. Tried to help her get on with her life. Adjusting to having  
her time to her own. Having the possibility to plan her life ahead, without the fear that she could  
be dead by tomorrow.  
Yes, at first. But when she wouldn't get on fast enough, when they saw her still struggling, they  
distanced themselves from her slowly.

Then she started drinking. Willow was out of town by then (She visited her a few times. But she  
never felt comfortable in the big, fancy house of her girlfriend's family). Willow still tried to be   
helpful, but she was meeting new people, she was busy. After some time, they had barely anything  
to talk about.

Buffy had never expected this. After everything they'd been through together, she'd expected  
they would be friends for... forever. That nothing would be able to destroy the bond between  
them.  
But it turned out that this bond was forged mostly by habit. Once they hadn't the hunt any longer,  
once they didn't see each other every day, it turned out they had nothing in common anymore.  
Meetings seemed forced. Meaningless small-talk over a coffee. Talking about their successful,  
happy lives, about their families. And then embarrassed silence when it was her turn, and it  
turned out nothing had changed.  
At some point she just had enough of forcing her company on the others. She stopped calling.  
She barely heard of Dawn anymore, either. She was away in college and was enjoying her life.  
And why shouldn't she. Buffy didn't begrudge her her fun (Yes, she did). Dawn had a lot of friends  
and a boyfriend, like a girl her age should. When Buffy called, it was always a bad time. Either  
she had to learn for a test or she was just on her way to a party.  
So she spent her time alone most of the time. Staying home in the evening, watching TV, drinking.  
She went to the graveyard from time to time, but there was nothing left to hunt.  
She still did her training out of habit. Her supernatural strength and stamina were still in place.  
Maybe that was the reason she had managed to take all the shit she'd done to her body over the  
years without much damage.  
Most of the time she was alone now.

She and Xander they met from time to time, Sunnydale wasn't big after all. They talked,  
sometimes he would invite her to dinner.  
But then she drifted away further and further. One day she realized that he didn't have a crush  
on her any longer, like he used to all those years. She saw only pity left in his eyes.  
And then came the day, once her drinking had gotten worse, he told, her he didn't want her   
around his kids any longer.

She decided to make a break. To start new. She moved away to New York. Then she spent some  
time in Las Vegas and finally she moved to Wyoming.  
It didn't do her any good. She still didn't fit in anywhere. She was a slayer with nothing to slay.  
Willow had once suggested to her to see a psychologist and maybe get some antidepressants.  
But what was she supposed to tell the psychologist?  
"Hi, I've been hunting vampires and demons for most of the past years and now I've lost my job  
and started drinking, because life just sucks"? Not very likely, unless she wanted to end up  
in the loony-bin.  
So she kept her drinking up. And then she moved from waitress to stripper. With that job came  
crack and cocaine.  
Then she moved on to heroin and started doing things for money she was ashamed to even   
think about.

That was when she decided to get help. After a lot of up and downs. After a lot of nights she'd  
ended up on drugs again or pucking her soul out, she'd finally managed to get clean.  
She owed it mostly to her sponsor. He was great. He was a college professor and an alcoholic.  
She could call him anytime. Whether he was in a lecture or it was in the middle of the night, he  
was always there for her.

So there she was, she was thirty-one, an AA and she worked as a stripper. Some years ago she  
hadn't even been sure she would still be alive by now.  
She had saved thousands of people. She had sacrificed her life several times.   
She had beaten evils that most people didn't even know existed.   
She had dated two of the most notorious vampires existing.  
She had closed a fucking Hellmouth.

And that was what her life came down to.

Than it happened. She was witness to Macawi, the guy who owned the nightclub she was working at,  
murdering one of her fellow strippers.  
It went down pretty fast, she wasn't used to people using guns.  
The police wanted to get the guy for ages and she was the key witness. They said they would  
drop the charges because of drugs and prostitution, if she'd testify.  
She had two detectives basically hanging at her feet.  
She told Agent Victor Machado, the FBI guy who wouldn't leave her alone, that Macawi would kill her if she testified against him. He told her that they   
would protect her.  
Seriously those guys? Protect her? Those guys couldn't even protect themselves if they ever  
got in one of the situations, she had gotten into on the daily (or nightly) basis.  
It wasn't that she was scared of some mobsters. It was more that she didn't feel like fighting  
against an evil power all over again. She had enough of constantly watching her back.

Then Siobhan wrote to her and she learned that she had a twin sister. From the looks it was pretty  
obvious. She wrote her that they'd been separated after birth and that they'd been adopted by  
different families.  
For the first time after many years Buffy called her father. He told her it was the truth. So she  
was adopted. Didn't make much difference considering that Dawn wasn't her real sister.  
Siobhan asked her to visit her. And she thought why not?  
Why not get away from all this shit?  
The agent who was supposed to guard her didn't know what hit him, when she knocked him out  
(both figuratively and literally). He hadn't expected those fighting skills from that small, blond  
woman.  
His boss wouldn't believe one word of it, if he told him what she'd done to him. She left him tied  
with his own hand-cuffs.

When she finally met Siobhan, she couldn't believe it. It was like...like magic. In a good sense.  
Not like with the First Evil taking her shape, back then.  
She thought maybe she could finally be happy. Maybe she could built something new. Siobhan's  
life was perfect. She was rich, had an attractive husband and no other problems than the interior  
design of her new loft.

But then they went on a boat-tour in the Hamptons and she fell asleep. When she woke up they  
were still on the water, but Siobhan was gone. She searched for her jumped into the water, but  
she couldn't find her. Siobhan must have jumped out of the boat. She had killed herself.  
She'd found a sister and lost her only a few days later.

What was she supposed to do now? Go back? She had attacked a police officer. There wasn't  
much to go back to.

But Siobhan, her life was perfect. 

She didn't even know how she got the idea, but Siobhan had said that she'd told no one about   
having a sister.  
And suddenly Buffy had found the answer to all her questions. And why, not? She'd dealt with  
worse situations that this.  
She put the stuff she'd brought with her into locker at the train-station, then she put on some of  
Siobhan's clothes and and burned her passport at the beach.  
The she returned to the city as Siobhan.

It was insane. It was immoral. It would probably get her into jail. But she didn't feel like she'd   
anything to loose.

At the first evening she'd panicked and called her sponsor. But she decided to stay anyway.  
The she met her husband, Andrew and she realized for on thing that he was gorgeous and for another  
that her sister hadn't had the perfect marriage she'd imagined.   
Maybe it wouldn't be that hard to keep this charade up.

She had charity-dinners, friends and a new loft in the making. She had visited it once with her  
"best friend" Gemma, but decided to go back there at night.  
It was amazing, this fancy place would become her own. 

That was when she heard someone sneaking up on her.   
She could tell. There was a huge difference in the sound of someone walking  
up to you and someone trying to muffle the sounds of his steps.  
Nice try. But he would need some more practice to catch her by surprise. Slayer-instincts.  
"Hello? Is there someone?" She tried for innocuous and scared.  
The guy finally moved out of the shadows and charged her with a gun in his hand. Sorry, honey  
but the versage dress and the gucci handbag might be misleading.  
She started with a low-kick, staying out of his shooting range. They guy was obviously a professional,  
(What kind of professional? If they weren't talking professional vampire, she had absolutely no  
experience in this field) he could take a hit.  
He managed to land a blow at her stomach. But she could take a hit too. Judging from his look,  
he hadn't expected this kind of resistance.  
She tried to tell him that they had the wrong woman. He probably didn't know either that she  
had a twin sister. She had to convince him that she was Siobhan, so he would tell his boss and  
they would finally leave her alone.  
But he didn't react at all to her yelling at him, that she was Siobhan.   
While they wrestled for the gun, a shot went off. Shit, shit, shit. The guy was hit and died within  
seconds. Great, now she had a corpse to deal with. One who didn't turn to ashes, but would  
stay there until she found a solution.  
She searched his stuff and found a picture. A picture of Siobhan.

Turned out her sister's life hadn't been that perfect, indeed.

She would find out who was trying to kill her sister. She would stay here. After all the shit that  
went down in her life, she deserved a little happiness. Or until she found that, at least a hot  
husband and tons of money.  
Whoever wanted Siobhan dead. She would deal with him. This guy didn't know what he got   
himself into.  
She'd fought demons, vampires and werewolves. She'd closed a Hellmouth and fought the   
First Evil. She'd died two times. Whoever this guy was, he would learn like all the others had   
learned before him.  
It was damn hard to kill Buffy Summers.

This was her life now. No one would take it from her.


End file.
